We don't know if they will be here beyond May, that would apply to any loanee. But in this case there will be more power for us to keep them if we want to. That has to be a plus over a normal loan. Yes, any player eats into our budget, whether owned or loaned, that's a given.

I know sometimes clubs use loyalty bonuses instead, probably increasingly these days. I thought someone may say this but I just use signing on fees as a catch-all term for simplicity. On FM they call it a signing on fee when you first sign them, and a loyalty bonus after that. I think they have it as signing on fees are up front, loyalty bonuses paid over contract if they don't request a transfer. In the real world it's probably different in that some clubs will tend towards it always being loyalty bonuses even for new signings, I would assume.

I'm not sure what your aim was with this post, but I'm not biting.

Is that in terms of the tenacity and desire to win the ball as well? JDT seemed to imply in a previous interview that he wasn't doing too much of that and he has been encouraging him to (and that he had taken to it really well). Maybe it's just that Wharton had been trying to show off his class rather than his graft to the new boss. If he plays that well every game I don't think he would even need to improve to be top drawer at this level. We all know every game isn't going to go that swimmingly though, there will be teams who control the game too much for him to have an impact and there will be midfielders who will kick him around to try take him out the game. Good luck to those ones though if big bro is playing, as they'll then get twatted when they go near the defence!

He isn't, he's 18. A young 18 though, birthday was 2nd June.

The followup wasn't half bad either. Tenacity and desire, I like it. Hope he keeps that hunger and wasn't just buoyed by his debut in a local derby.

It's very likely the players who came in for fees have a total wage bill and sign on fees higher than Lenihan's contract. So I don't think that's a fair way to look at it.

I agree. His technique is very good but what impresses me the most about him is how composed he is and his speed of thought. He reads the game brilliantly, like very few 18 year olds can, decides almost immediately what to do and does it without any hesitation at all. So far, those decisions are spot on too. The other thing that impresses me is his ball-winning, a surprising bonus but perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise given who his brother is.

Wiki tells me Barker scored once every 5.2 games for us, which is a very good rate from central midfield. Being honest, I have to say that striking ability is the only thing in his game we didn't see any particular sign of against Blackpool. He had two shots from the edge of the area and both were blocked. I don't know if the first was on target, it's hard to tell from the video and from where I was in the ground. The second seemed on target to me at the time but the keeper had it covered. In all his appearances, almost all of which were at youth level, he has 2 goals in 45 games. 4 of those games were senior appearances so he has a 1 in 10.25 average at youth level. Senior level is obviously harder, so it will take a lot of development to get to a 1 in 5 average you would think. Hopefully that comes.

I think it's only fair in this context to mention that 2 of the loans are with an option to buy. That is a change in thinking. A try-before-you-buy approach isn't a bad idea for a club like ours. Hopefully the option prices aren't too high and there is something left in the kitty for them if we decide to make them permanent, but I suspect the options are there partly with a potential Brereton sale in mind (Hirst's, anyway, I bet Mola is a lot cheaper).

Ahh so you haven't seen the Tugay and Foden comparisons then.

You really think it makes zero sense to want to have a stronger squad than last season? Honestly?

Dolan has had me on the edge of my seat plenty of times since he arrived. His form has dipped though and he needs better end product.

Thing is, if he leaves next summer his signing on fee and wages will be inflated by being a free agent. If a club pays that sort of money that goes away and they've less left to spend on his contract. Also, clubs have shown in this window that, for some odd reason and more fool them because they can't all get him for free, they're not willing to pay 15 million for him. So unless he plays even better, he might not get the move at all with that price tag. Overall, that idea suits us a lot better than it suits him. I highly doubt his agent would let him sign it unless Brereton himself insisted.

Well, 4 out of 15. So not most, less than 1 in 3, but still a good chunk of them.

I dunno, Adam Wharton does pretty well with his pulled down.

Yeh, I was gonna mention this. Didn't turn out how he, or Connor Mahoney expected eh? Can still eke out a Championship career though, as Mahoney is doing for now, but honestly they waste crucial years of their development with these moves. I can only hope Ash Phillips is wiser and signs that new deal soon.

Good curries tbf. I was only being hypothetical with my question.

4 of his 15 goals were headers.

None of those on the image are new signings?

Anyone at Leeds in exchange who would have been worth loaning til January to plug the gap if we did for some reason sell this late?

It feels like we signed a player yesterday with finally finding out just how good Adam Wharton is.

He's fucking ridiculous! Absolute class, all in one match too. That's better than a lot of players highlights reels. (Yeh I know it's been posted above, it plays better on the mobile with youtube though)

I see what you did there.

He didn't even win the Blackpool sponsors' man of the match that came up on the screen. Fairly sure that went to Dominic Thompson. Thought their goalie was their best player tonight tbh.